Olympic Track and Field 2016: Women's Javelin Throw Winners, Scores and Results

Sara Kolak barely made her way through the initial round of attempts in the women's javelin throw at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She sat on the outskirts of contention through her first three throws, staring up at five women on the leaderboard. 

Then Kolak pulled out all the stops in her fourth attempt and walked away with gold.

The 21-year-old Croatian dwarfed the field with a throw of 66.18 meters Thursday, defeating South African Sunette Viljoen by more than one meter to earn her first Olympic medal. She had placed third in qualifying and had never done better than bronze in an international event.

Medal	Thrower	Distance
Gold	Sara Kolak (Croatia)	66.18 meters
Silver	Sunette Viljoen (South Africa)	64.92 meters
Bronze	Barbora Spotakova (Czech Republic)	64.80 meters

The gold is Croatia's fifth in the 2016 Rio Games, comprising 71.4 percent of the country's seven medals overall. Croatia and Spain are tied for 13th on the gold-medal count.

Kolak's fourth attempt broke a national record she had already owned and was by far her best during her time in Rio. She qualified with a 64.30-meter toss and didn't have any others in the final that went longer than 63 meters.

Viljoen, who narrowly missed a medal in London in 2012 with a fourth-place finish, brings home South Africa's ninth medal in Rio. Her opening attempt of 64.92 meters set the pace through the first three rounds of attempts and wound up giving the 32-year-old her first medal.

Barbora Spotakova of the Czech Republic earned bronze after a throw of 64.80 meters. It's the eighth medal and sixth bronze for the Czechs. The world-record holder in javelin, Spotakova had won the last two Olympic gold medals. She had finished ninth in the 2015 World Championships, though, so victory was far from preordained. 

Spotakova finished just 0.02 meters ahead of fourth-place Maria Andrejczyk of Poland. 

Kolak's advantage over second place was greater than the separation from Viljoen to seventh-place Lyu Huihui of China. Christina Obergfoll of Germany was the only thrower who advanced to the final three attempts who did not reach 64 meters.

At age 21, Kolak is almost assuredly going to come back and attempt to defend her gold in four years. Given the surprise nature of her win, she made sure no one will take her lightly again.